


Vocaloid

by ceywoozle



Series: One Word Bottomjohn Prompts [92]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:24:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You're alone,” his doctor tells him, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to say.</p><p>I know. So what? I'm not lonely.</p><p>He's not.</p><p>“You don't know how to be alone,” she clarifies after a moment of silence. “Find yourself, John. It'll help.”</p><p>***</p><p>Part of the One Word Bottomjohn Prompt Series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vocaloid

**Author's Note:**

> i know this is not what a vocaloid is but allow me some artistic license.

“You're alone,” his doctor tells him, and he doesn't know what he's supposed to say.

_I know. So what? I'm not lonely._

He's not.

“You don't know how to be alone,” she clarifies after a moment of silence. “Find yourself, John. It'll help.”

That statement, coming from the subject of his despair, is singularly unhelpful. He debates on whether or not to say something but in the end he can't really be bothered so he just looks at her, waits for something else to come that might, against all expectations, prove to be somewhat useful.

“Talk to yourself,” she tries, and he waits, endlessly patient. “Get a recorder, or a diary. A blog. Talk to yourself. See what John Watson has to say.”

She's talking about him as though he's not in the room, a third person who isn't here and it's disconcerting. He bites his tongue, waiting to taste the copper of blood before releasing it again, just to make sure he really is here. But the image of his doctor doesn't waver. She is solid and so, apparently, is he.

She draws breath to speak again and he waits, wondering who she's going to talk to this time, himself, or the phantom of himself, the third presence in this already overcrowded room.

“Time's up,” she says.

 

* * * * *

 

He goes to the market. Not out of any particular desire but because it's on his way and he recalls a leatherworker there with journals bound in calfs hide as soft as butter. He'd gotten one for Harry, years ago, the cover stamped with her initials amidst the scrollwork along the edge.

She'd been less than enthused with the gift, but he remembers it, remembers the feel of the leather soft against his calloused fingers, and he wanders now, slipping unhurriedly between the crowds of people, wondering if he can find it again.

But there is no sign of it and eventually he lets himself get ejected from the mass of humanity, coming to rest at the end of a dim aisle where only a single table stands, cluttered with scrap metal and machinery. Someone stands behind it, safety glasses lowered over eyes shadowed by a heavy brow, narrow lips pursed in a concentrated streak of bright red as broad fingers tamper with the insides of a small box the colour of bronze.

They look up, and it's only then that John realises he is staring.

“Looking for something?” they ask.

“There was a leatherworker here,” John says.

The vendor shrugs, snapping the small door shut on the inside of the box and putting it down among the clutter on the table. “Not here. I'm here.”

“Yeah,” John says, but he doesn't leave and the vendor is still watching him, small eyes bright.

“What you looking for?”

“A journal. She had some journals. They were nice.”

The vendor looks down at the table in front of them. “No journals here.”

“No,” John says. “Ta anyway.” Except he's still not leaving and after a second the vendor plunges their hand into the mess of gears to their right and comes up with an iron-black cube.

“Aha!” they grin, “Wondered where that got to,” then holds it out to where John is still watching, fascinated and a little afraid. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Like journal,” they say. “You talk to it, it talk back.”

“Like a recorder?”

“Sure. Twenty quid.”

John takes it. It's much lighter than he expected, each side the length of his hand. It's dull and black and feels cool to the touch and if it weren't so light he would have expected to feel the rough heaviness of iron, but instead it's smooth and flawless, the only interruption of its surface a small grate on one side. He tries to peer into it but all he sees is the glint of gears.

“How does it work?” he asks.

“You talk to it,” the vendor says.

“Do I need to push something? A button?”

“No buttons. Just talk. Thirty quid.”

“You said twenty.”

They shrug. “Inflation. You taking too long.”

John snorts. He should put it down, walk away. He thinks of soft leather and cool blank pages and he almost does. Except there is a pulse of heat against his palm and he looks down to see something flash between the bars of the grate and slowly, through the cool blank surface of its shell, he can feel the grind of gears starting to turn.

“Too late,” the vendor says. “It yours now. Forty quid.”

“I only have fifteen.”

“That's what I say. Fifteen.” And they hold out their hand.

 

* * * * *

 

There is a glow to it that is imperceptible until it's night time and John's turned off the light. Sitting in the dark of the bedsit, the curtains drawn against the glow of the street, he is fully dressed, only his shoes kicked off beside the door.

He stares at the thing, pulsating gently across the room. The whir of gears has quieted to a faint hum that he can only hear when he concentrates. It sits on his desk, the light it emits a faint blue. It's subtle, but it's unmistakeable.

_Talk to it,_ he thinks.  _That's what you're supposed to do._

“Um. Hello,” John says, and the silence that falls is deafening.

After several seconds of nothing happening, he tries again.

“My name is John Watson. Hi. I'm supposed to talk to you. Tell you...things. So. Hello. I'm thirty-six, was in Afghanistan, got shot. Parents not around. Haven't heard from my sister in about a year. Don't know where she is right now. I'm sure she's fine. Um...” he trails off, stares at the box. Realises he's run out of things to say.

Across the room, the box is pulsating still, the only change is that the quiet humming has grown faintly more audible. It sounds expectant.

“I don't have anything else to say,” John tells it. “Sorry. I'm not very interesting. You were probably happier at the market.”

He's talking to the box.

With a sigh, he shuffles down till he's lying on the bed. Turning his back to the cube, he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

 

* * * * *

 

“Hello.”

John blinks. It's still dark, only the faintest line of light from the street lamp slipping in past the edge of the curtain. He doesn't remember falling asleep but he must have done because suddenly he is waking up.

Why is he waking up?

“Not very polite. I say hello and you just lay there. Or are you stupid? God, you're stupid aren't you?” and there's a sigh.

_I should be worried,_ John thinks. But instead he just sits up.

Across the room, sitting on his desk, there is a man. He's tall and angular and above all naked and he's pulsating with a faint blue light.

“Perfect,” John says. “I'm hallucinating.”

The man looks at him with disgust. “Do I look like a hallucination?”

John feels a spark of annoyance. “Yes,” he says, and adds somewhat testily, “You're naked and you're glowing.”

The man looks down at himself and suddenly he's clothed. “I can't help the light,” he says. “You'll just have to deal with it.”

“Right,” John says, and lays back down.

There is an indignant silence.

“What are you doing?” the man demands.

“Dealing with it,” John answers.

There is a snort and then a flare of blue and then nothing. John thinks about looking but ultimately decides against it.

He doesn't realise he's slept again until suddenly it's morning and he sits up in bed, trying to remember his dream. It's not difficult, the details are startlingly clear. He looks at the cube on his desk. It is humming quietly and pulsating gently and John knows he's imagining it, but for some reason it feels as though it's sulking.

 

* * * * *

 

He goes for a walk because there's nothing else he has to do. He enjoys the satisfaction of the rubber end squeezing against the pavement and he puts more weight on it than he probably should just to feel it give underneath him. He gets coffee from the cart in the park, the last of his money till the end of the week, but he tries not to think about it too hard. It's only two more days. It occurs to him that he should have spent it on something to eat, but he can't remember the last time he was hungry so he ignores it.

“It's not real. Your injury. You don't need the cane.”

The voice comes from beside him and John looks over. Keeping pace, long gangling limbs in a straight black suit, the man looks a little bit like a spider. His hair is dark and wildly curled, and John watches it for several seconds just to see if it moves with the brisk wind coming up from the east. It does.

“I'm hallucinating again,” John says.

The man looks at him, irritated. His eyes are the same blue as the pulsating glow he demonstrated last night.

“Don't be an idiot.”

“Okay,” John says, and veers away.

After a few seconds, the man catches up. “What was that for?” he snarls.

“I was hoping you would go away.”

“Then you shouldn't have bloody woke me up.”

“You mean the cube?”

The man gives him a look. “Obviously.”

“Well I wouldn't have if I'd been given a choice.”

“How comforting. Bit late for that now. Do you know I was minutes away from discovering a new element when you started pawing at me?”

“Look, it wasn't intentional. Is there any way I can put you back?”

The man bristles. “Why? Am I not good enough for you?”

“I thought you didn't want to be here.”

“Then you should have thought of that before.”

John stops. The man continues for several steps before turning, impatience written on his angular features and it strikes John that they're not quite normal, as though someone with only a theoretical knowledge of the human face had assembled it. It wasn't unattractive per se, merely vaguely alien, the bones too sharp and the angles just a little bit off. Even the eyes, that familiar blue, are just a touch too sharply angled and their irises weirdly light, as if the glow—imperceptible now in the sheer light of day—has settled into a steady burn behind their lenses.

“What are you?” John asks.

The man draws himself up. “I'm a vocaloid.”

John frowns. “I have no idea what that is.”

“That's because you're an idiot.”

“Are you actually here? I mean are you real?”

The man—no, not man— _vocaloid_ glares at him. “Of course I'm real.” He reaches out a hand and smacks the arm of a passing woman. The coffee she's carrying goes flying and John narrowly misses getting hit with it.

“What the fuck?” she demands, glaring at the vocaloid.

The vocaloid ignores her. “See?” he says to John, smug self-satisfaction on his angular face, and John is still staring at him when the woman hits the vocaloid across the head with her bag. For a brief second, the image of the vocaloid flickers, and then it reappears. The woman, already stalking away, hasn't noticed, but John can see the brief buzz of static around the edges where he had been hit.

“I see,” John says and helps him back to his feet. “You're blurry,” he says.

The vocaloid, rubbing at the back of his skull, glares after the woman but turns back to John at those words. “It'll pass,” he says. “Now, where can we get tea?”

“At the bedsit,” John says. “I don't have any money left.”

“You don't have tea at the bedsit.”

“No, but there's water. That's halfway to tea.”

The vocaloid looks at him. “I'm not sure I can be corporeal under these circumstances,” he says, and blinks out of existence.

 

* * * * *

 

John doesn't return to the bedsit until after three, and when he does, the vocaloid is laying with his back on John's bed, his legs straight up in the air against the wall. His eyes are closed and John wonders if vocaloids sleep.

“No,” the vocaloid says. “We don't. We just sort of disappear for a while.”

John pauses. He isn't sure how he feels about a mind-reading entity sharing his space.

“I don't read minds,” the vocaloid says. “You're just incredibly obvious.” He shuffles himself around till he's sitting up, cross-legged in the centre of the bed. “I brought tea,” he says. “And food.” He gestures to the desk with his chin and John glances over.

There is tea, half a dozen apples, a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a package of beef jerky.

“All the food groups,” John says and goes to his desk where he opens his laptop.

“Well?” the vocaloid demands.

“Well what?”

“Aren't you going to eat?”

“Not hungry. Go ahead if you like. By the way, how do vocaloids make money?”

The vocaloid looks at him like he's stupid. “The same way you make anything else.”

John turns around and looks at him. “Did you forge it?”

“Don't be ridiculous. I made it. That's a completely different thing.”

“Fake notes?”

“No, no. A credit card. Much easier to do.”

“Where exactly is the credit coming from?”

“From the credit companies, of course. Don't worry, they won't notice.”

John squeezes his eyes shut and sighs. “I'm going to have to get a job.”

“What for?”

“To make money.”

“I just told you, I made money. You're fine. So, when are we going to move?”

“Move?”

“We can't stay here. It's tiny. And dark. And dirty. Also I don't like it.”

“It's all I can afford.”

The vocaloid looks at him. “I can't tell if you're stupid on purpose or by accident.”

John turns back to his laptop. “Fine. Let me know when you figure it out would you.”

The vocaloid snorts. When John looks over next he's gone.

 

* * * * *

 

John doesn't see the vocaloid again until the next day. He is leaving Regent's Park, enjoying the press of the pavement against the soft rubber tip of his cane, when suddenly spider-long limbs and an alien face appear beside him.

“Doesn't that attract attention?” John asks. He glances around to illustrate his point, but there's no one looking at them at all.

“People only see what they want to see,” the vocaloid says. “Come on, I've found our new place.”

“I can't afford to live here.”

The vocaloid ignores him and for some reason John finds himself following along anyway.

They walk for five minutes before they stop at a door. It's black with brass numbers and the vocaloid knocks. In spite of the fact that John had seen first hand evidence of the vocaloid's corporealness, he's still surprised at how solid it sounds. However, after several minutes of no answer, John begins to wonder again if this is all in his imagination. After all, if he can hallucinate a naked glowing man, why not a woman with a coffee cup?

He's about to turn around to find a phone so he can call his doctor when the door opens and an old woman stands there. She has a vapid-looking face, but her eyes are off-settlingly intelligent, and when she puts out her hand to shake his, he gives it to her without a thought.

“John Watson?” she asks. “Sherlock here told me about you. Come see for yourself. I know you probably want to make sure for yourself that it'll suit.” And with those words she turns around and leads the way inside.

John, still reeling under the fact that the vocaloid seems to have named itself Sherlock, can only follow wordlessly.

The flat is on the first floor and it's large. There's a kitchen and a sitting room and a bedroom. They are all separate rooms and John hates that the vocaloid has dangled this in front of him because the thought of going back to the bedsit now makes him want to vomit, or possibly laugh, or possibly both.

“This is perfect,” John says when both the old woman and the vocaloid look at him. “But I can't afford it.”

“Nonsense,” the woman says. “Didn't Sherlock explain? In any case, he's chosen you now so it's too late. You can move in immediately.”

“Sorry,  _chosen me?”_ He looks at the vocaloid who is most definitely sulking now.

“Of course, dear. Do you think he just comes out for anybody?”

“No, of course not, that would be silly,” John says somewhat facetiously, but the old lady just beams at him.

“I knew you'd understand. My name's Mrs Hudson, dear, and I'll just called you John. Or do you prefer 'doctor'?”

“Er. Just John is fine.”

“Delightful. I'll see about getting some tea, you just make yourself comfortable,” and with that she bustles from the room.

John looks at the vocaloid as soon as the door closes behind her. He looks sheepish.

“Sherlock?” John says sceptically.

“It adds character,” the vocaloid says.

“I can't call you that.”

“Why not?”

“It's not even a name.”

“Of course it is. It's old English. It means bright hair.”

“Your hair is black.”

“It could have been blonde.”

“But it's not.”

“But it could have been.”

John glares at him. “That doesn't make any sense.”

“Don't blame me, you're the one who made this.” He gestures somewhat disparagingly at his lanky black-encased body and his wild hair. “If you prefer blondes you should have done something about it. Now it's too late.”

“I don't prefer blondes,” John says.

“Yes, well, obviously. I prefer blondes. Do I get a choice, though? No, I don't. So you're not allowed to complain.”

“I'm blonde,” John says somewhat stupidly and the vocaloid—no,  _Sherlock—_ looks at him like he's an idiot.

“Oh, well spotted, Doctor Watson,” he snaps and flounces out of the room.

John is left on his own, staring around at what is apparently his new home. It's cavernous, absolutely enormous in its emptiness, and he wonders how on earth he's going to manage to fill it. He has no furniture. He has nothing except a suitcase of clothes and a handful of battered books, read to ribbons.

“What am I doing here?” he says out loud, and because he doesn't have an answer he leaves.

 

* * * * *

 

“Moving day!”

John blinks his eyes open to daylight. He doesn't remember falling asleep. He doesn't even remember going to bed. But Sherlock the vocaloid is sitting on the edge of his mattress and shaking him awake. He is naked again but doesn't seem to realise it.

John considers mentioning it then changes his mind.

“I can't move,” he says instead. “I have nothing to move.”

“I already took care of that,” Sherlock says. “I made more money. The furniture arrived at nine.”

“Nine? What time is it?”

“Eleven. Hurry up, John!” And with a blink of his eyes he's wearing clothes again, a pinstripe suit, long and perfectly fitted to his gangly frame. Except it's not all that gangly. There are definitely muscles that John spotted when Sherlock had spun around, for a brief intriguing moment his backside mere inches from John's fascinated face.

John shakes his head clear of those thoughts and kicks off his blankets. He's undressed beneath the linen and for a moment he's startled into stillness. He doesn't remember undressing. He doesn't remember the last time he'd bothered to undress before falling into bed, sheer exhaustion forcing him down. And he doesn't remember the last time he'd slept so late. He wonders if he's getting sick.

“Don't be stupid,” Sherlock says, appearing suddenly with an apple in his mouth. He takes a bite and shoves the rest into John's half-open mouth. “Let's go, I don't want to have to stay here any longer than I have to.”

 

* * * * *

 

There is furniture. 

The hallway is packed with it. The stairs are clogged. The flat is crowded. There are crates of dishes and glassware, even more of laboratory equipment. Stacks of bed linen and blankets, which quickly disappear with Mrs Hudson to be washed. There are boxes of books: medical texts and crime history and autobiographies of murderers and serial killers and poisoners and even several boxes of mystery novels in which John recognises his own taste. He starts to pull them out but Sherlock is there, dragging him to his feet and herding him along.

It takes all day to get everything into its proper room and only then does John allow himself to collapse in the hideous red chair that had been set out in the sitting room. There is furniture, but it's mismatched and utterly eclectic and John wonders why on earth he likes it so much. He bounces in the chair a few times, enjoying the way it's already begun to settle itself around him and realises with some surprise that he's hungry.

“I was thinking,” Sherlock says, dropping into the black leather chair across from him, “Italian.”

“I'm not hungry,” John says out of sheer habit.

Sherlock scoffs. “I ordered already. Should be here in five minutes.”

“Then why did you ask?”

“I'm practising manners. Mrs Hudson says I'm rude.”

“Well you are rude.”

Sherlock glares at him but before he can say anything the door rings and he's leaping out of his chair again and disappearing downstairs. A minute later he's back and the smell of tomato sauce and garlic is heavensent in the air around him. John doesn't care that he's rude, just that he's bringing lasagne.

“This is brilliant,” he says and Sherlock smiles at him. Actually smiles and John feels something in the general region of his chest suddenly contract leaving him momentarily unable to breathe. Maybe he really is getting sick.

Sherlock hands him a carton and a fork. “Eat,” he says. “Mrs Hudson made cake.”

 

* * * * *

 

It's only the next evening that John realises they have a problem.

“There's only one bedroom.”

Sherlock, engaged in sorting the books into alphabetical order, doesn't even look at him.

“There was only one bedroom last night too.”

“But you didn't sleep.”

“So what's the problem.”

“Well, don't you need somewhere to rest? You know...disappear? Whatever it is you do?”

“Don't be stupid, John. We don't need another bedroom.”

Mrs Hudson walks in at that moment. “There's another bedroom if you'll be needing two,” she says putting the tea tray down on the kitchen table.

Sherlock throws his hands in the air. “We don't need two!” he exclaims and vanishes in a dramatic flare of blue light.

John looks at Mrs Hudson to see what she makes of her vanishing tenant, but she merely rolls her eyes and pours out the tea. “He was always such a child,” she says with a sigh of affectionate despair.

“Mrs Hudson,” John says as she hands him his cup. “How exactly do you know Sherlock?”

“Know him?” She laughs, a friendly tinkling sound. “I made him, of course. Didn't Sherlock tell you? Honestly, that man,” and shaking her head she leaves again.

John is pouring out a second cup of tea when Sherlock reappears at his elbow.

“Is that for me?”

John hands it to him. “So,” he says. “Who is Mrs Hudson?”

Sherlock fiddles with his cup and makes a show of grimacing at the taste. “No sugar?”

John hands it to him. Watches as he spoons it in and stirs, knocking the spoon against the side of the cup far more than is necessary.

“Well?” he asks as soon as Sherlock puts the cup to his mouth and Sherlock rolls his eyes, putting it down.

“Well what?”

“Who is she?”

“Our landlady. Honestly, John, I thought that was obvious.”

“No. Who is she to you, Sherlock?”

“My landlady. Is this important?”

“Is she your mother?”

Sherlock snorts. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“She said she made you.”

“Yes, well, that's different. I was already raised when she made me.”

“Already raised?”

“Yes. Well. Sort of. She put the bits together but I sorted them out.”

John is silent for a moment, trying to process this.

“Are you the only one?” he asks. “Are there other black boxes out there with vocaloids inside?”

Sherlock slumps down into his chair and huffs.  _“Them.”_ he says disgustedly, then glances suspiciously at John. “Why?” he demands. “You can't just put me back and choose someone else, you know. They probably wouldn't even like you anyway.”

John sighs. “I don't want to put you back. I'm just curious.”

Sherlock stares at him for a second longer then, impossibly, slides even lower into his chair. “There are a few. But I'm the smartest. Mostly. Except for one. But he's fat. You wouldn't like him. And he wouldn't have gotten all these books for you. He thinks novels are for idiots.”

“Oh.”

“They are, of course. But I wouldn't say it.”

Weirdly, John's chest gives another lurch. He puts a hand to it, almost unconsciously. Sherlock looks at him, his blue eyes sharp.

“What is it?” he demands.

John just shakes his head. “Nothing. Ta for the books.”

 

* * * * *

 

“John.  _John!”_

John blinks his eyes open. It's dark and warm and he's cocooned in soft blankets that smell like fabric softener and he's naked.

“John.”

There's a pale shape hanging over him and it's throbbing with a faint blue light.

“Sherlock. What time is it?”

“What does it matter? It's three o'clock. Move over.”

“What?”

There's no answer except for hands suddenly shoving him over to one side and he lets them, closing his eyes and breathing as Sherlock starts arranging him on the far side of his enormous new bed. They finish to their satisfaction and John feels the mattress dip behind him as Sherlock lays down.

There is a moment of silence. Then: “What now?” Sherlock asks.

John doesn't say anything in the faint hope that maybe if he stays quiet Sherlock will just go away.

“John.  _John!_ Why are you ignoring me?”

“Sleep,” he manages.

“Oh. How?”

“Close your eyes and shut up.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Are the blankets necessary?”

“If you're cold.”

“Oh.” There's another pause and then the hands are back and John is being unwound from his cocoon and he really should protest this so he grabs feebly at the edges of the disappearing blanket.

“Wanker,” he mumbles and Sherlock freezes.

“That's rude,” he says.

“You're stealing my blankets.”

“Well you're hogging them. That's also rude. I wonder if Mrs Hudson knows. She can yell at you next time instead of me.”

“God I hate you.”

“No you don't. Here.” The blanket descends over John once again and he clutches at it, pulling it over him.

Sherlock comes with it. Cold skin presses up against John's and he yelps and pulls away.

“We need to buy another blanket,” John says.

“No we don't. You just need to learn how to share.”

John mumbles something wordless. The next time Sherlock comes near, he's warmer and John doesn't protest because he's already asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

They buy another blanket. Sherlock sulks the entire way home, but when John makes a show of making up both blankets side by side on the bed, he starts to settle down.

“I like to cocoon,” John says. “You're just going to have to live with that.”

He makes Sherlock tea and helps him alphabetise books for the rest of the afternoon and by the time evening comes and John is yawning and stretching and making signs towards the bedroom, Sherlock is pliant and pleased.

When John comes out of the bedroom, Sherlock is already ensconced. 

Both blankets are on top of him.

“Sherlock.”

“I'm asleep.”

“No you're not.”

“Well I'm not now. Why do you have to be so loud?”

“Sherlock. That's my blanket.”

“I'm cold.”

“Too bad.”

“John.”

“No, Sherlock.”

_“John.”_

“Stop it.”

“Please?”

John looks down at the vocaloid, buried beneath two blankets on the suspiciously large bed. His heart flops over. He doesn't even know why he tries to fight it any more.

He sighs and climbs onto the mattress. Immediately he is encompassed by two blankets, an arm, and a leg. A chin nuzzles at the top of his head and John sighs in resignation.

“Goodnight, Sherlock,” he says.

“Goodnight, John. Mrs Hudson says I should say 'sleep well.'”

“Okay.”

“Sleep well, John.”

Incredibly, he does.

 

* * * * *

 

He wakes up sweating in a tangle of blankets and limbs that aren't his own. He has to pee but there's a weight on him and when he tries to shift it it just makes a groaning noise and settles more firmly in place.

“Sherlock. Loo.”

Sherlock moans and the steel hold around John's person seems to tighten.

“I'll come back.”

Another moan, but this time the limbs loosen and John is able to slip out. He pulls on a jumper and a loose pair of joggers, shivering as the cold material touches his skin. He pads to the toilet and does what he needs to before going to the kitchen to make tea.

The kettle is boiling when a pair of arms suddenly appear from behind him and clamp themselves around his waist.

“You said you were coming back,” Sherlock grumbles. He buries his face downwards into John's neck and John scrunches his shoulders up as a cold nose finds the warm place under his collar.

“Tea,” John says.

“Yes please,” Sherlock says and retreats to the sofa where he sprawls himself across it. He's naked again and John goes to him, throwing a blanket across his form.

“You don't like it when I'm naked,” Sherlock says and there's a question in his tone that John isn't sure he wants to answer.

“Sugar?” he asks instead and when Sherlock nods he turns back to the kitchen.

He makes the tea but he's distracted and when he brings the two cups into the sitting room he can't remember which one has the sugar in it.

Sherlock looks at him, amused. “The left one is yours,” he says and John scowls at him but passes him the right cup.

Sherlock takes it, still lying down, and puts it on the floor.

“It's going to get cold,” John warns.

Sherlock rolls his eyes but he sits up. There is the sticky sound of bare skin again leather and the blanket sags to his waist and Sherlock pushes it aside with an impatient gesture. He bends over and picks up his tea and John watches, fascinated, as his spine unfolds in a series of vertebrae, all the way to the bottom where the curve of the buttocks vanishes beneath the lower back.

And then Sherlock is rising again and John watches as the spine accordions back into place, the curve of the buttocks disappearing to be replaced by shoulders, a flushed face, a narrow chest that isn't objectively attractive in itself but which John suddenly wants to touch, if only to see if it's as smooth and cool as it appears. Sherlock is hairless until his belly button, where the faint trail of dark hair begins, dipping down between the long narrow thighs. Everything about Sherlock is long and narrow it seems.

Almost everything.

“John? Are you okay?”

John realises he's stopped breathing.

“Yes,” he says, but only the hiss of the ess comes out. Even to his own ears he sounds like a punctured tire. “Yes,” he tries again and is pleased when it works. “I have to go,” he says, and turns around and walks away.

He gets to the bedroom without Sherlock saying a word, and when John reaches it he softly shuts the door behind him leans back against it as if somehow that will keep Sherlock's presence on the other side of it.

But it's too late. Two blankets are heaped on a too large bed, two pillows bearing the marks of two different heads. John wonders if this was intentional and then realises that of course it was. Weirdly, he finds that he doesn't mind.

“Are you okay?”

John nearly has a heart attack. Sherlock is leaning against the door beside him, watching him closely.

“Sherlock!” John snaps. “Use the bloody door, can't you?”

“Should I knock, as well?” Sherlock sneers.

“Yes, you bloody well should!”

Sherlock glares at him and vanishes.

Half a second later there is a knock at the door behind John.

“Who is it?” John calls.

There is the low mutter of a curse from the hall. “Sherlock bloody Holmes.”

John opens the door.  _“Holmes?”_ he says. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” Sherlock snaps, “Seriously. Sherlock Holmes. And I don't care if you don't like it.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

“Oh for god's sake.” And Sherlock Holmes the vocaloid kisses him.

For several minutes John just lets it happen. When it finally stops and he is able to breathe again he says, “I didn't know vocaloids could do that.”

Sherlock snorts. “Don't be an idiot, John. Why else would I be here?”

“I don't know. You should probably show me.”

The look Sherlock gives him is one of faint disgust. “Don't flirt, you're terrible at it.”

“Wanker,” John says, and this time he kisses Sherlock, and even though they've already done this it still comes as a shock when Sherlock lets it happen.

The next time they step away John has given up on breathing. He has also given up on thinking and having his heart continue inside his chest because he's sure it's not supposed to be beating this hard. He gasps against Sherlock's chest and lets long arms slide around him.

“Can I?” Sherlock asks, and John isn't entirely sure he knows what Sherlock is asking but since he hasn't yet had any success in stopping the vocaloid from doing exactly what he wants he doesn't imagine he'll start succeeding now. He nods, forehead rubbing against bare skin, and when Sherlock pulls away he makes a sound of protest. This wasn't what he was expecting. He thinks maybe he's clinging but he's too embarrassed about it to ask.

“Stop that,” Sherlock says and firmly pulls away, only to start to remove John from his clothes. This is better, John thinks, and lets himself be guided away from them, to the too big bed that had been the point all along.

“It's been a long time,” John says.

“I know that,” Sherlock says. “Lay down.”

John does, because why not. He's never going to win this. When Sherlock slides onto the mattress beside him John doesn't try to pull away. And when the limbs start to circle, pulling him in, dragging him under, he lets them take him. They are long and warm and strong, and when Sherlock kisses John again, John doesn't even try to remember to breathe. Not until later anyway. Much later, when he is spent and pliant and Sherlock is above him and inside him and he is glowing, blue and bright, his eyes almost too light to look at, and Sherlock, pushing further, pushing deeper, says “Breathe, John,” and John remembers to inhale.

 

* * * * *

 

He wakes up in the dark. There is only a faint glow in the room and it takes John several seconds for him to realise that it's coming from Sherlock, buried halfway beneath the blankets behind him. There is an arm around him and a leg and he is tired and sore but he has to go to the loo.

The arm tightens as soon as he tries to move.

“No,” Sherlock says.

“I'll be right back.”

“You said that before and you made tea instead.”

“It's too late for tea.”

There's a silence as Sherlock ruminates on this. “Okay,” he finally says and the various limbs are removed.

He goes to the loo where he does what he needs to do. Afterwards, passing the sink, he glances up and sees his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He stops. Stares at himself. Can't remember the last time he's looked himself in the eye.

It's a weird feeling, like meeting a stranger somewhere familiar. 

But then he smiles, grinning at himself, and he thinks maybe it's okay. He wouldn't mind meeting himself.

“John!” Sherlock calls, petulant and half-asleep, and with a last glance, a last grin, John flicks the light off and follows the glow of the vocaloid back to bed.

 


End file.
